"Jews For Sale": The Rudolph Kasztner Transports

Introduction By Peter Landé and Joyce Field

Background

During the years that the Nazis controlled Germany and then large parts
of Europe there were numerous attempts to bribe officials in order to save
individuals, including large numbers of Jews.
These efforts, mostly futile, are described in Yehuda Bauer's
Jews for Sale? : Nazi-Jewish negotiations, 1933-1945
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).

Small as they were, compared to the total Jewish population held by
the Nazis, two efforts in 1944 were successful.
More than 1,900 Jews, mostly Hungarian Jews, were delivered by train
across the Swiss border. The principal negotiator for these
two transports, Rudolph (Rezs÷) Kasztner, remains a controversial
individual, who was later murdered in Israel. On the night of
March 3, 1957, Rudolph (Rezs÷) Kasztner became the first Jewish victim
of a Jewish political assassination in the State of Israel, murdered for
determining which Hungarian Jews to save from extermination during the
Holocaust. Persons interested in greater details on Kasztner
may wish to read Anna Porter's Kasztner's train: the true story of
Rezs÷ Kasztner, unknown hero of the Holocaust (2007), and examine
a website devoted to Kasztner's efforts at
http://www.kasztnermemorial.com.
At this site, the following is written:

"He [Kastzner] was murdered for what some would consider
'playing God,' determining which Hungarian Jews to save from
extermination during the Holocaust. Like Oskar Schindler,
Kasztner negotiated with the Nazis to save lives.
Unlike Schindler, however, Kasztner's actions and motives were
questioned by Hungarian Holocaust survivors whose families were
not included in the select group of Jews to be saved."

The memorial site, the purpose of which is to resuscitate Kasztner's
reputation, and is thus sympathetic to him states:

"The prospect of saving Hungarian Jewry through ransom, odious as
it appears, proved an alluring chance at beating the final solution to
Kasztner and his associates.... A number of historians have also
credited Kasztner and the Vaadah with saving the remnants of the Budapest
ghetto and Kasztner in particular with saving the Jews who remained alive
in places like Bergen-Belsen immediately at war's end.
Despite the many lives saved and the heroic efforts expended it was
clear at war's end that the grand plan of saving Hungarian Jewry failed.
The record of Kasztner's heroism was buried under the rubble of that
failure."

Particularly interesting is the transcript of the interview by
Claude Lanzmann with Hansi Brand, wife of Joel Brand, one of the members
of the Relief and Rescue Committeee of Budapest (the Vaadah, or
Vaadat Ezra ve'Hatzalah, generally referred to as the Vaadah, or
the Committee). Hansi describes how the Hungarians thought
they would escape the "Holocaust"; however, when the Germans invaded
Hungary in 1944, their illusions were shattered.

The Committee was established in 1943 to help Jewish refugees,
particularly those from Slovakia and Poland, who had fled to Hungary
to escape the Nazis. The leaders of the Committee were Rudolph
(Rezs÷) Kasztner, a Zionist from Cluj; Joel Brand, also from Transylvania
and, in the words of Saul Friedlander, "something of an adventurer in
politics" (Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, p. 621), and
Otto Komoly, an engineer from Budapest.
Around March/April 1944 the focus changed to negotiations with Eichmann
for the exchange of Hungarian persons for military trucks.
Eichmann told Brand that 10,000 Jews could be saved for every truck
delivered to the Germans. The final proposal was the exchange
of 800,000 Hungarian lives for 10,000 trucks. Brand was to be
allowed to go to Istanbul to raise the funds along with Bandi Grosz,
another Hungarian Jew. On May 19, 1944 Brand met with the Yishuv
(Jewish community in Mandate Palestine) representatives in Istanbul.
The intricate details of the meetings of all parties-in Turkey, Palestine,
and Syria -- are described by both Brand and Friedlander.
Hansi and her children remained in Hungary, as hostages one presumes;
but Hansi describes her meeting with Eichmann, which surprises Lanzmann.
Brand's mission ultimately was not successful.

Hansi brought Kasztner to meet Eichmann, which began the negotiations
to bring the Jews from the provinces -- including Cluj -- to Budapest.

"She says that Eichmann told her husband that he should hurry on
his mission to Istanbul, because 12,000 Jews per day were taken to
Auschwitz. Lanzmann questions Hansi Brand about the highly
controversial rescue mission, the Kasztner Train (Lanzmann does not use
this term), especially about the "privileged" nature of the transport
and the 388 passengers from Cluj, Kasztner's home town."

"Lanzmann says that Kasztner is sometimes criticized for not
warning the Jews in Cluj, for example, about what would happen to them
in Auschwitz. Hansi Brand says that is the most evil lie and
gives examples of Jewish leaders from Cluj (she uses the German name of
the town, Klausenburg) who knew quite well what Auschwitz meant.
Lanzmann says that some people from Cluj who survived Auschwitz later
complained that they were not told what it meant to be sent to the camp.
Hansi Brand says that many people did not want to know that the Jews were
being exterminated. She finds it impossible that anyone could not
know by 1944 what was happening in German-occupied areas.
She talks about the postwar Kasztner trial, in which Judge Benjamin Halevi
believed the witnesses against Kasztner. They continue to talk
about how much information was or should have been given to the Jews
of Cluj."

April 5, 1944: Rezs÷ Kasztner and Joel Brand meet for the first time
with Wisliceny and members of the SS. Wisliceny demanded $2 million
dollars to implement in Hungary what was known as the "Europa Plan" -
a suspension of deportations to concentration camps.

April, 1944: The first installment of 3 million Pengos
(Hungarian currency equalling about $92,000) is delivered by Kasztner
to close associates of Adolph Eichmann.

April 21, 1944: Kasztner delivers the balance of the $200,000
demanded as downpayment on the "Europa Plan."

An offer is presented to allow the 600 holders of Palestine immigration
certificates to leave Hungary and to permit an additional 100 to leave
with them if Kasztner can provide a per capita payment of 100,000 Pengos
(about $3,000 a head).

April 25, 1944: Eichmann enters the negotiation process,
inviting Joel Brand to be with him. Eichmann offers to "sell"
one million Jews in exchange for certain goods to be obtained outside
of Hungary.

May 27, 1944: Kasztner, his wife, Hansi Brand, Sholem Offenbach,
treasurer of the Vaada, and his wife were arrested by the Hungarian police.
Hansi Brand was beaten so savagely that she could not stand for a week.
Six days after their arrest, the group was freed through the intervention of
the SS.

June 10, 1944: 388 Jews (out of 18,000 in the Kolozsvar ghetto)
were brought to Budapest on a special train and placed in a "privileged camp"
built in the courtyard of the Wechselmann Institute for the Deaf on
Columbus Street.

August 21, 1944: First meeting between Saly Mayer, Swiss representative
of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Switzerland, Kasztner, and
Kurt Becher on a bridge linking Switzerland and Austria.

The first 318 Jews are released from Bergen Belsen and transported to
Switzerland.

December 7, 1944: The second group of the Kasztner transport,
consisting of 1,368 Jews, arrives in Switzerland.

In the Kasztner Report, Lanzmann feels that Kasztner seems to express
some guilt. There has been the accusation that Kasztner
"saved certain people from Cluj (his own family and Zionists)."
Lanzmann asks Brand to explain how people were chosen for the transport
to Bergen-Belsen (the so-called Kasztner Train rescue mission).
"She says that the types of people chosen varied greatly but included
the most endangered refugees, Zionists, Jewish intellectuals, orphans,
and rich people, whose wealth helped pay the $1,000 per-person ransom
demanded by the Germans." Lanzmann asks Hansi why she thinks her
husband's mission to Istanbul did not succeed and she replies
"that the English did not want to help the Jews because they did not
want to deal with the problem of Palestine. She says further that
the Jews in Palestine were not informed as to what was happening.
She ends the interview by defending her husband against historians who
say that he did not return to Budapest out of fear for himself
(Joel Brand was arrested by the British in Aleppo and eventually ended
up in Palestine)."

Leora Bilsky, in "Judging Evil: New Departures in Israeli Legal History,"
quotes the judge in the trial of Kasznter:

"The judge . . . derived from this contract the main explanation
for Kastner's subsequent betrayal of his people: The benefit that K.
gained from the contract with the Nazis was the rescue of the "camp of
prominent Jews" and the price that he had to pay for this was a complete
surrender of any attempts at real rescue steps benefiting the
"camp of the people." The price the Nazis paid for this was to
waive the extermination of the "camp of prominents."
With this contract to save the prominent Jews, the head of the
Aid and Rescue Committee made a "concession" with the exterminator:
in return for the rescue of the prominent Jews K. agreed to the
extermination of the people and abandoned them to their fate."

Sources:

1996.166 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum purchased the
Shoah outtakes from Claude Lanzmann on October 11, 1996.
The Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection is now jointly owned by the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs'
and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Joint copyright belongs to
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs'
and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, and the State of Israel.

Database

Separate lists exist for each of the two transports.
The transport in August 1944 (List I) includes approximately 300 Jews,
and the transport in December 1944 (List II) includes approximately
1,600 Jews. Both lists are combined in this database but
identified by list number.

A list of the persons on the larger transport has long been available on
http://www.kasztnermemorial.com,
but the names of the persons on the smaller transport have been more difficult
to find. Both lists were recently located in a World Jewish Congress
collection held at the United States Holocaust Museum archives,
(RG 39.013M reel 10). The information on the December transport is
given as it appears on the above cited website. The August transport
list required considerable editing and complete dates of birth were added.
If the information on the World Jewish Congress list differed significantly
from Bergen Belsen records, both were included.
This database includes a total of 1,939 individuals from both lists:

List I: 318 Records
List II: 1,621 Records

The fields for this database are as follows:

Source (List I or List II)

Surname

Maiden Name

Given Name

Date of Birth

Place of Birth

Occupation

Nationality

Comments

Acknowledgments

The information contained in this database was indexed from the files of
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(USHMM File RG 39.013M reel 10). The Hansi Brand interview is at
Story RG-60.5002, Tape 3109-3111. The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum purchased the Shoah outtakes from Claude Lanzmann on October 11, 1996.
The Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection is now jointly owned by the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'
Remembrance Authority. Joint copyright belongs to the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'
Remembrance Authority, and the State of Israel.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database
expertise to make this database accessible. Special thanks to
Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish
genealogy. Particular thanks to the Research Division headed by
Joyce Field and to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.